Dominican University

The Rosary College of Arts and Sciences strives to embody a community of learners seeking truth through free and open inquiry and dialogue with a diverse array of persons, places, texts, objects, ideas and events, past and present, supportive of each learner’s development and committed to using our talents to make a positive contribution to the world.  We strive to produce graduates of a liberal arts and sciences program who can think critically, communicate ideas well, orally and in writing, and achieve both breadth of understanding across fields and depth of knowledge in one field.  Three overlapping components make up the curriculum:

• Core: A sequence of courses that provide the student with secure foundations, breadth of intellectual vision and integration of the undergraduate academic experience;
• Major: An opportunity to pursue one area of knowledge or discipline in greater depth; and
• Electives: Special forays into that zone of freedom that characterizes liberal learning.

The essential learning goals for Dominican undergraduates are guided by the university’s mission of preparing “students to pursue truth, give compassionate service, and participate in the creation of a more just and humane world.”

1. Foundational proficiencies: A specified level of proficiency, normally by the end of the first year at Dominican, in designated foundational skills and abilities (including critical reading, writing, speaking, visual literacy, foreign language, quantitative reasoning, computer applications, information literacy and research methods), and enhanced through subsequent coursework.

2. Areas of study: An appreciation of and a growing ability to show how key areas of study including philosophy, theology, history, social sciences, literature, fine arts and natural sciences, individually and/or together, contribute to the pursuit of truth, the offer of compassionate service, and the creation of a more just and humane world.

3. Catholic, Dominican, and other religious traditions: Sustained critical study of and engagement with Catholic and Dominican traditions, broadly understood, along with other religious traditions and dimensions of culture. 

4. Diverse perspectives: An increasing capacity to engage diverse perspectives and to bring diverse modes of inquiry to the critical investigation of significant questions, topics or issues, and to adjudicate between them in a deliberate and reflective manner.

5.Major field: A significant level of mastery in a major field of specialization, demonstrated through successful achievement of each of the essential learning goals outlined by that discipline, including a significant research project or creative investigation in the major.

6. Connecting major and core: An increasing capacity to discern and articulate connections between information and ideas across the curriculum, including a capacity to situate one’s major field within the larger field of liberal learning represented especially by the LAS Core Curriculum.

7. Experiential learning: Sustained direct experience and critical, respectful engagement with diverse ideas, practices and contexts, especially through study abroad, domestic study and community-based coursework.

8. Connecting experience and coursework: An enhanced capacity to integrate experience outside the university with academic coursework, especially through service learning and internships in one’s major field.

9. A personal stance: An increasing capacity to develop and articulate a coherent, informed and ethically responsible personal stance, able to meet significant challenges likely to be encountered in one’s studies, and in one’s personal, career, and civic life.

10. Participation: An ability to contribute to the college and university as communities of intellectual and moral discourse and decision-making, in preparation for life-long learning and participation in communities beyond Dominican.